3 day weekend:

When You Go Home
Tell Them Of Us
And Say
“For Your Tomorrow,
We Gave Our Today”

Memorial Day
(image via Wikipedia)

 
Memorial day. A day to remember the fallen….Those who fell in the defense of our country, our Constitution, and our freedom.

Set on the last Monday in May, for many (most) people, this is a weekend with an extra day off, with maybe an auto race thrown in. It should be more. It should be a sacred day, a solemn day….A day of thanks.

For many, it is a day to do work in the yard, work on the house, and then grill out, maybe with friends. Hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill….maybe baked beans and potato salad and chips. A few beers and some conversation with the neighbors or guests….

But take a moment, remember the reason for the day. If you have family members who gave the ultimate sacrifice, take a moment to remember them. If their grave is nearby, you might take a few minutes and tidy that gravesite up just a bit…maybe a flag placed there. If you don’t, or if you have the time, maybe find a grave that is no longer taken care of and spend a few minutes.

But remember the reason. Remember those who fell in the service of your country:

Remember the Soldier who died in the civil war, a lead ball puncturing him and the slow death on a battlefield….

Remember the Doughboy in WWI who died at the bottom a a muddy trench, cold and wet, a german bullet in his chest.

Think of the man who fell assaulting a sandy beach in WWII, his blood staining the black volcanic sands. Or the man who died after parachuting into France for Operation Overloard, or who died on Gold beach…..Or the boys who perished when their shot up bomber couldn’t struggle to stay in the air anymore over the English Channel and fell into the sea despite everything they did to fly home….

The men who froze to death at the Chosin Reservoir in Korea.

The boys who died in a jungle for a war they didn’t understand in Vietnam….

The soldier who bled to death when his leg was blown off by an IED in Fallujah.

The Seal who died in the mountains of Afghanistan saving his buddies.

And really, you should remember the man or woman who died because they could not adjust to life anymore due to PTSD. Even if they died after the end of their enlistment.  They too gave all….

Remember them. They died serving their country….and serving you. They defended your way of life. Defended the country which gave you what you have today. Freedom.

If you forget them, you do them a disservice. you devalue their sacrifice…You devalue the gifts that they gave you.

You devalue yourself.

If all this weekend is to you is a three day weekend, and extra day off, then you are not deserving of the gifts they sacrificed to give you.

Remember. 

Enjoy what they gave you.

I will.

question:

I wasn’t there, and I don’t have all the videos….So this may not be fair.

But apparently, while the 2 black Muslims were killing the British Soldier, lots of people were “filming” their actions.

I realize that the men were armed with knives and/or cleavers/axes.

No one could find something to hit them with? I understand that law abiding Brits are unable to possess or carry firearms, but surely people could have found a way to distract these men. Surely the men passing by could find a tree limb, or a chair, or a large tone to ….discourage these animals?

Or am I missing something?

ETA: Apparently some folks “remonstrated” with the attackers AFTER the fact. Maybe there are some guts left in the British city dwellers after all.

Shades of Jack Ruby….

So, somehow, the friend of one of the brothers Kablamov Tsarnev brothers (the Boston Marathon Bombers) was involved in an investigation for murder…

And somehow, while being investigated (and, according to some reports, just before he signed a confession to a murder) he shot at an FBI agent…. and subsequently assumed ambient temperature.

Interesting.

Odd though. Lots of questions loom.

I am sure that the conspiracy theorists will make something of it. I know that I find it….convenient.

This is what happens

When you allow immigration without assimilation.

Warning: This is gruesome.

It’ll happen here, if we don’t change the way we handle those who want to move here from other countries. It has happened here…see also the Tsarnevs and Major Hassan…and countless Mexicans in the southwest on a smaller scale.

If we don’t do something about the situation soon, it’ll get worse.

Notice that it took armed police to stop them.  No bystanders were, of course, armed.

You should

Read this

Then call your Representatives and ask them to do it.

Stop it all until this gets worked out, and we have assurances that the guilty are punished, those associated are out of government service, and that it will never happen again. 

As I said below. if each of us who called, wrote or emailed out elected officials over gun control would do the same for these scandals, we might just inject some steel into their spines.

So call, write, and email.

Does anyone really believe?

You can take the politician out of Chicago, but you can’t take the “Chicago” out of the politician. Intimidation is the Chicago Way. It works, as long as everyone lets it. As long as everyone accepts it as a way of doing business.

Lets look at a few things:

When the Obama administration revamped the dealer network for GM during the Auto bailout, the overwhelming percentage of closed dealers were conservative. Most of them were donors to the GOP or to conservative causes. No one really said anything, but we all noticed it.

Companies like Gibson guitars got hassled by, and shut down by the Justice Department. To this day, no one has stated exactly how Gibson ran afoul of the law. It has cost them millions of dollars and many jobs. Interestingly enough, they too are big contributors to conservatives.

The latest scandal is, of course, the IRS and their treatment of Tea Party and other conservative groups in their quest to follow the law regarding 501 tax exemption.

Now, I have no doubt that Obama can truthfully state that he gave no orders regarding the treatment of these (and other) conservative supporters by any of the arms of our government. I am sure that he never gave orders requiring that conservatives be hassled or held up to special scrutiny.

Remember though: King Henry II of England never gave any orders to have Thomas Beckett killed by his four knights either. While he may not have uttered the phrase “Will no one rid me of this meddling priest”, Historians do say that he questioned “What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in
my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt
by a low-born cleric?”. Four knights took this as an order and killed Beckett with swords and knives.

The knights were not arrested by the king….their actions were, instead, ignored.

Notice any parallels with todays actions by the government, with Obama as the head?

We need to pressure the Republicans to MAKE THIS STOP. They are, at this time, making a lot of noise and spending a lot of our money with their “investigation”. At the least, people need to be in jail.

We need to pressure them to not, as they have in the past, made a lot of noise but , at the end, done nothing, but rather convene not only an investigation, but file charges and prosecute to the fullext extent of the law..

The persecution of conservative groups may well have had an impact on the election (and then again, with Romney running, maybe not). But squelching of dissent by the government, the damage to the political process, the stifling of free speech MUST STOP.

And while you, and I and all of our friends may lack the power to stop this, our elected officials do have the power. Sadly, I think that they lack the backbone.

If each of us that called them over gun control would call them over this debacle, we could inspire them to grow enough spine to stop this. If the response was as impressive as it was over gun control, they’d grow some backbone, just like they grew backbones over gun control when they heard from their constituents then. IF each of us took enough time, and called and wrote and emailed our representatives and Senators, we can make a difference. They like their jobs, and when we hold their feet to the fire, they do the right thing. We can make it happen.

It’s better than the alternative.